Kalmar Union - Final Dissolution

Final Dissolution

One of the last structures of the Kalmar Union, or, rather, medieval separateness, remained until 1536 when the Danish Privy Council, in the aftermath of a civil war, unilaterally declared Norway to be a Danish province, without consulting their Norwegian colleagues.

Although the Norwegian council never recognized the declaration formally, and Norway kept some separate institutions and its legal system, this had the practical effect that the Norwegian possessions of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands came under direct control of the crown. In principle this meant the Norwegian crown, but under the Danish union (the monarch lived in Denmark) this meant that they were henceforth controlled from Denmark and not from Norway.

In the 1814 treaty of Kiel, the king of Denmark–Norway was forced to cede mainland Norway to the king of Sweden, Charles XIII. Norway, led by the viceroy, prince Christian Frederick, objected to the terms of the treaty. A constitutional assembly declared Norwegian independence, adopted a liberal constitution, and elected Christian Frederick king. After a brief war with Sweden the peace terms of the Convention of Moss recognized Norwegian independence, but forced Norway to accept a personal union with Sweden.

In the middle of the 19th century, many intellectuals joined the Scandinavist movement, which promoted closer contacts between the three countries. At the time, the union between Sweden and Norway under one monarch, together with the fact that King Frederick VII of Denmark had no male heir, gave rise to the idea of reuniting the countries of the Kalmar Union, except for Finland.

In 1953-55 the former territories of the Kalmar Union, Denmark (with Greenland and the Faroes), Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, reunited in the Nordic Council, an economic and political cooperation union.